


Leaves in the Wind

by sapphireswimming



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: 100 Drabble Challenge, Angst, Body Horror, Brotherhood, Character Study, Drabble Collection, Family, Gen, Horror, Nightmares, One Shot Collection, Philosopher's Stone, Self-Loathing Van Hohenheim, Spoilers for The Promised Day, The Gate of Truth, The Law of Equivalent Exchange, The Promised Day, Xerxes | Cselkcess, painful painful irony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-04
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23060656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphireswimming/pseuds/sapphireswimming
Summary: A collection of 100 word drabbles. Various characters and genres. Spoilers for the Promised Day.1- Monster: Hohenheim realizes he isn't one2-Trust: Al puts his trust in Ed3- Birth: Hohenheim saw them4- Leader: Following the leader...5- Stone: They just couldn't win6- Unequal: Equivalent exchange?7- Sleep: Nightmares are terrible things
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric & Winry Rockbell, Father & Van Hohenheim
Kudos: 10





	1. Monster

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7807921/1/Leaves-in-the-Wind

The world was ending. The worst part in Hohenheim's mind, however, was that his... friend from the glass... had a new form. His.

The homunculus looked exactly how he had all those years ago. A mirror image; an exact replica of his younger self. It was him, doing every evil the mind could conceive to his countrymen and to his children.

He had to remind himself that it wasn't him doing these things. It wasn't him, but the homunculus.

Heh. Wasn't it odd that it took a doppelganger destroying the world to teach him that he wasn't a monster himself?


	2. Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Al puts his trust in Ed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7807921/2/Leaves-in-the-Wind

Alphonse sighed shakily, taking in his stark white surroundings. He had a moment's misgivings about what he had done, which were washed away in a deluge of confidence in Ed and the realization that it was too late to do anything else.

"Are you ready now?" his soul asked, drawing him back to his current situation.

"Yes," Al replied firmly. "All we can do now is believe in our brother."

His thin face smiled back up at him from where he sat on the ground, too weak and malnourished to get up.

"That's what I've been doing this entire time."


	3. Birth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hohenheim saw them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7807921/3/Leaves-in-the-Wind

Father smirked at him as globs tumbled out his stomach, impossibly coalescing into humans.

Hoenheim stood shocked as he recognized the people he knew from Xerxes "birthed" again after hundreds of years. Seeing them smiling at him… taunting him with their very concreteness.

They weren't real in the ways that mattered.

Xerxes was dripping, the skin peeling and one eye missing, although he thought he was immortal. And there were his fellow slaves, beaming, showing off their new bodies to him. But they wouldn't last. A snap of Father's fingers or a puff of wind would blow them away forever.


	4. Leader

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following the leader...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7807921/4/Leaves-in-the-Wind

Edward Elric was the brusque one. The brash blond who dressed dramatically in red and black. Despite being the smaller of the two (not that anyone would dare say it) he was the one who pushed his way past people, made their needs and wants known. Al could have done it more easily, given his intimidating bulk, but any task like that fell to Ed.

Strangers saw an older brother who had taken over the lives of both without giving the younger a say.

Those who knew them well, however, knew Alphonse was leading. Ed would do whatever he said.


	5. Stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They just couldn't win

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7807921/5/Leaves-in-the-Wind

They knew they couldn't beat him, mere mortal humans as they were. They continued attacking regardless, knowing that their only chance was to make him use up his stone.

They attacked the very thing that they all wanted, needed to conserve because no one in their right mind would allow the creation of another stone once this battle was over, not after knowing the process and the suffering it brought.

Father was their last chance to use the stone. But they had to destroy him—destroy the philosopher's stone—to survive long enough to use it.

They just couldn't win.


	6. Unequal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Equivalent exchange?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7807921/6/Leaves-in-the-Wind

Alphonse could recite the law while asleep. Edward clung to it like a lifeline. It was the motto by which every alchemist in the nation lived.

Equivalent exchange. In order to gain something, something of equal value must be given.

There was a way to bypass the system, however. With a philosopher's stone, anything was possible without much cost to the alchemist. Even human transmutation, they said.

Then the truth was revealed. A philosopher's stone _could_ grant life. One life. But thousands must be sacrificed to make one stone.

Now that was an unequal exchange if Ed ever heard one.


	7. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightmares are terrible things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7807921/7/Leaves-in-the-Wind
> 
> Prompt: "Sleep! Oh sleep for just a while longer! For when you wake, you will be slaves." - Poseidon in _The Trojan Women_ by Euripides, translated by Sarah Ruhl

Ed tossed and turned on the makeshift cot, sweat glistening on his forehead and mumbling words that were too strained to make out.

Winry walked into the room, determined to wake him from his nightmare, but stopped when the suit of armor suddenly put out a hand and gently blocked her from his brother.

"Al?"

"Don't wake him."

"But… he's having a nightmare."

Al nodded.

"Al… he's suffering. Don't you want to make it stop?"

"It… he… it's better than what he actually goes through."

She realized then that she had no clue what kind of life her brothers lived.


End file.
